


Quarrel

by Keenir



Series: Unleashing the gods [1]
Category: Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers want to know why nobody can find Agent Coulson's body.</p><p>"[...] and you will vanish silently and swiftly away."<br/>-<span class="u">The Hunting of the Snark</span>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarrel

Repair crews and recovery crews alike had come up empty. So now, all other avenues exhausted, the Avengers had all gathered around and were watching a key piece of video footage - Loki stabbing Coulson, the two of them having a nice little chat, then Coulson shooting Loki with the Destroyer-based gun, dying...and then vanishing, gone invisible.

"Could it have, been faked?" Banner asked.

"Jarvis?" Stark asked.

"I have not left the Carrier's systems since my upload, sir. At no time has the video been doctored."

"Unless you did it," Rogers said to man and AI.

"Me?" Stark asked. "Why would _I_ do it?"

"So you could claim the Avengers' circling the wagons and moving out in common cause, was your doing, if not your idea."

"While it sounds like something I might do on a dare, it wasn't me. Fury, on the other hand -"

Loki began to laugh.

"Something funny, chuckles?" Stark asked him.

"In this regard, certainly, your race never changes: in defeat, you quarrel over whose fault it was; in victory, you squabble over who deserves greater acclaim; but always, you bicker."

"Well you're not wrong," Banner quipped. "But I think the bigger question is, do you know where Agent Coulson went?"

"Oh certainly," Loki said, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"Where?" Rogers asked.

"Where you can never go."

"This is no time for games, brother," Thor said to Loki. "What have you done with the agent?"

"I made a present of him."

"For your boss, the big whosit up in the sky?" Stark asked.

"No."

"Then w-"

"Family is always important, is it not, _brother_?" Loki asked Thor.

"It is," Thor agreed.

"Which family?" Natasha asked. Sometimes the weird reading material SHIELD insisted on, panned out, sometimes not so much. "Angerboda?"

"Angrboda," Thor and Loki corrected at the same time.

"And there would be little point," Loki said. "She has rightly hated me for centuries, and even clever Coulson would be not the ornament I would send her." _Though perhaps as an addition to her army...perhaps that would have been an option._

"Then where?" Thor asked him.

"The land I am forbidden from treading upon. Home of your favorite child."

Thor knew that 'how' would be entirely the wrong question. So he said to his fellow Avengers, "I will set to work on the retrieval of Agent Coulson. It should not take too long," though he also knew that it was possible Agent Coulson's body was indeed dead, and he had been left behind while invisible, accidentally or deliberately...his proximity to the large gaping passage in the Carrier could not be ignored.

 _What are a few centuries between friends,_ Loki thought and considered saying, but felt now was not a good moment for a jab at how long negotiations and paperwork could take, be it on Earth or in Asgard. "Shall we go now?"


End file.
